Lombardy
Italy's financial and fashion capital, and the city of the Duomo, Leonardo's Last Supper and Teatro alla Scala.
Activities
Duomo
Advance booking recommended
Italy's largest Gothic cathedral, begun in 1386 and worked on for almost six centuries, faced in Candoglia marble and carrying more than 3,400 statues. The standard ticket also covers the Duomo Museum and the church of San Gottardo in Corte.
Duomo
Advance booking required
A walking route across the cathedral roof between the flying buttresses and spires, ending below the gilded Madonnina. Access is by 251 steps or by lift, with views over the city and, on clear days, to the Alps.
Magenta
Advance booking required
Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, painted between 1495 and 1498 on the refectory wall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent. Entry is by timed slot only, 40 people every 15 minutes, and slots regularly sell out months in advance.
Magenta
Usually works as a walk-in
Dominican church begun in Gothic style in 1463 and completed with a Renaissance tribune and dome attributed to Bramante. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with the adjoining refectory that holds the Last Supper.
Magenta
Usually works as a walk-in
Sixteenth-century Benedictine convent church on Corso Magenta, frescoed floor to ceiling by Bernardino Luini and his circle, which is why it is nicknamed the Sistine Chapel of Milan. Entry is free, Tuesday to Sunday.
Magenta
Usually works as a walk-in
Founded by Saint Ambrose between 379 and 386 and rebuilt in the 11th and 12th centuries, it is the reference model for Lombard Romanesque architecture. The crypt holds the remains of Ambrose, Gervasius and Protasius.
Porta Ticinese
Usually works as a walk-in
Late-Roman basilica of the 4th century built on a central plan, fronted by a colonnade of 16 reused Roman columns. The attached Chapel of Sant'Aquilino preserves 4th-century gold-ground mosaics.
Brera
Advance booking recommended
Lombardy's principal old-master collection, holding Mantegna's Dead Christ, Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro Altarpiece and Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin. It is now paired with the modern collection at Palazzo Citterio under the Grande Brera ticket.
Duomo
Advance booking recommended
Twentieth-century Italian art in the Palazzo dell'Arengario on Piazza del Duomo, running from Futurism through Spatialism and Arte Povera. The upper Fontana room looks straight across at the cathedral facade.
Duomo
Advance booking recommended
Theater museum next to the auditorium of Teatro alla Scala, with costumes, instruments, portraits and set designs from four centuries of opera. The ticket also allows a look into the hall from a third-tier box when no rehearsal or performance is running.
Porta Romana
Advance booking recommended
Contemporary art complex in a converted 1910s distillery reworked by OMA, including the gold-leafed Haunted House and a nine-story Torre holding the Atlas collection. The campus, bookshop and Wes Anderson-designed Bar Luce are free to enter.
Castello & Sempione
Advance booking recommended
Fifteenth-century Visconti and Sforza fortress whose courtyards are open to walk through free of charge, from early morning to evening. One ticket covers all the civic museums inside, including Michelangelo's unfinished Pietà Rondanini and the Sala delle Asse painted by Leonardo.
Castello & Sempione
Usually works as a walk-in
Thirty-eight-hectare English-style park laid out in 1888 on the castle's former parade ground. It runs from the Castello Sforzesco to the neoclassical Arco della Pace and contains the Triennale, the aquarium and Torre Branca.
Duomo
Usually works as a walk-in
Iron-and-glass shopping arcade completed in 1877, linking Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Scala under a central octagonal dome. The mosaic floor includes the Turin bull that visitors traditionally spin a heel on for luck.
Monumentale
Usually works as a walk-in
Open-air collection of funerary sculpture opened in 1866, with tombs and monuments by Bistolfi, Wildt, Fontana and Manzù. The Famedio at the entrance holds the tomb of Alessandro Manzoni.
Centrale
Usually works as a walk-in
Two-floor food hall inside Milano Centrale station on Via Sammartini, with around 30 artisan counters covering pasta, pizza, fish, cheese and bread. Open from 07:00 to midnight almost every day of the year.
Duomo
Advance booking recommended
Small-group classes across the center teach Lombard staples such as risotto alla milanese, ossobuco and fresh pasta, usually finishing with a sit-down meal of what was cooked. Sessions typically run three to four hours and are run by independent schools and home cooks.
Navigli
Usually works as a walk-in
Guided walks along the Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Pavese stop at several bars for the Milanese aperitivo, where the price of a drink includes a buffet or a plate of food. Most tours run two to three hours in the early evening.
Brera
Usually works as a walk-in
Grid of narrow cobbled streets around the Accademia di Belle Arti, with galleries, antique dealers, bars and the Orto Botanico di Brera. Free to walk at any time and busiest in the early evening.
Navigli
Usually works as a walk-in
The surviving stretch of Milan's medieval canal network, lined with bars, workshops and courtyard housing along the Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Pavese. An antiques market fills the towpath on the last Sunday of most months.
Lake Como
Advance booking recommended
Trains from Milano Centrale and Milano Cadorna reach Como in roughly 40 to 65 minutes, and ferries from the lakefront serve Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio. Coordinates are for Como, the usual arrival point.
Hotels
★★★★★
Centrale
High season avg €850/night · Low season avg €550/night
Neoclassical grande dame of 1927 on Piazza della Repubblica, now part of Dorchester Collection, with around 300 rooms and the Club 10 spa on the tenth floor. A ten-minute walk from Milano Centrale station.
★★★★★
Brera
High season avg €1,300/night · Low season avg €850/night
Set on a private lane between Brera and the botanical garden, in an 18th-century Milanese building converted by Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel. Its 4,000 m2 private garden is unusually large for the center of Milan.
★★★★★
Duomo
High season avg €1,100/night · Low season avg €750/night
Occupies a 19th-century bank building on Via Tommaso Grossi, directly adjoining the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The glass-domed Cupola lounge sits at the center of the ground floor.
★★★★★
Quadrilatero
High season avg €1,300/night · Low season avg €900/night
Occupies a 15th-century convent on Via Gesù in the Quadrilatero, with 118 rooms and suites arranged around the original cloistered courtyard. Many rooms look onto the inner garden rather than the street.
★★★★★
Quadrilatero
High season avg €1,200/night · Low season avg €800/night
Four linked 18th-century buildings on Via Andegari, a block from Via Montenapoleone and Teatro alla Scala, with 94 rooms and suites. It holds the Michelin-starred restaurant Seta and a spa on two levels.
★★★★★
Quadrilatero
High season avg €1,100/night · Low season avg €750/night
Ninety-five rooms and suites on Via Manzoni at the edge of the Quadrilatero, designed throughout by Giorgio Armani. The spa, restaurant and lounge occupy the top floors and look out over the city.
★★★★★
Quadrilatero
High season avg €1,150/night · Low season avg €750/night
Set in the former 16th-century Archbishop's Seminary on Corso Venezia and opened in December 2022 by the Ferragamo family's Lungarno Collection. Its 73 suites open onto the colonnaded courtyard now called Piazza del Quadrilatero, which the public can walk through.
★★★★★
Quadrilatero
High season avg €1,000/night · Low season avg €700/night
Reopened in November 2025 after a Rocco Forte renovation of the former Carlton Hotel Baglioni, with entrances on Via Senato and Via della Spiga. It has 71 rooms and suites, two restaurants and a spa.
★★★★★
Brera
High season avg €900/night · Low season avg €600/night
A 1950s rationalist building by Pietro Lingeri on Piazzetta Bossi, reopened in 2024 as a Luxury Collection hotel with interiors by Patricia Urquiola. Its 116 rooms and suites sit below a rooftop pool and bar.
★★★★★
Brera
High season avg €900/night · Low season avg €600/night
Purpose-built hotel on Corso di Porta Nuova at the northern edge of Brera, with 88 rooms and suites, a private garden and a large spa. Most rooms have their own terrace or balcony.
★★★★★
Brera
High season avg €850/night · Low season avg €550/night
Opened in 2023 on Via dei Giardini in Brera as Baglioni's Milan house, with 30 rooms and suites, a wine cellar and a private living room. The restaurant is run by Michelin-starred chef Claudio Sadler.
★★★★★
Duomo
High season avg €800/night · Low season avg €550/night
Occupies the former Assicurazioni Generali headquarters on Piazza Cordusio, completed in 1901, and opened as a hotel in December 2023. Its 84 rooms and suites stand around a glass-roofed inner courtyard, under an octagonal dome terrace.
★★★★★
Centrale
High season avg €600/night · Low season avg €380/night
Postwar hotel of 1951 on Piazza della Repubblica, with 227 rooms and suites and a rooftop restaurant. Repubblica metro is on the square and Milano Centrale is about ten minutes away on foot.
★★★★★
Duomo
High season avg €580/night · Low season avg €360/night
Reopened in April 2026 as Tivoli's first Milan hotel, after a full renovation of the NH Collection Milano President on Largo Augusto near San Babila. It has 239 rooms including 60 suites, some of them facing the Duomo.
★★★★★
Centrale
High season avg €520/night · Low season avg €330/night
Meliá's design-led ME hotel on Piazza della Repubblica, with 132 rooms and suites. The Radio Rooftop bar occupies the tenth floor and is open to non-residents.
★★★★★
Porta Venezia
High season avg €450/night · Low season avg €290/night
A Liberty-style palazzo of 1903 on Corso Concordia, decorated by the architect Paolo Mezzanotte and restored as a 77-room hotel. Rooms are themed on opera and fairy tales, and the hotel belongs to Relais & Châteaux.
★★★★★
Porta Venezia
High season avg €390/night · Low season avg €250/night
Opened in February 2025 on Via Benvenuto Cellini, between Porta Venezia and Piazza Cinque Giornate, with 49 rooms and suites over four floors. Some ground-floor suites have their own garden.
★★★★
Duomo
High season avg €380/night · Low season avg €230/night
Sixty-four-room design hotel on Via San Raffaele, one street from the Duomo and the Galleria, in a 19th-century palazzo. The interiors in raw concrete, slate and burnished brass are by Vincenzo De Cotiis.
★★★★
Duomo
High season avg €340/night · Low season avg €210/night
Large hotel on Piazza Fontana, one block behind the Duomo, with around 330 rooms across several linked buildings. It has two restaurants and a wellness center.
★★★★
Centrale
High season avg €280/night · Low season avg €170/night
Hotel of about 280 rooms on Via Tarchetti, facing the Giardini Indro Montanelli. Turati and Repubblica metro stations are both a few minutes away on foot.
★★★★
Castello & Sempione
High season avg €260/night · Low season avg €160/night
Ninety-two-room hotel on Via Cusani, between the Castello Sforzesco and the Via Dante pedestrian axis. Cairoli metro is at the end of the street.
★★★★
CityLife
High season avg €240/night · Low season avg €140/night
Built into the former Chiesa di Cristo Re, a 1930s church near the Portello, with a new tower wing alongside it. It has 185 rooms and suites and a rooftop pool and bar.
